Three months later...
     ...and Vern Schillinger's lying flat on his back on the concrete floor of--*his*, by Christ --new garage, taking a deep breath of bright Spring wind as it spills through the open door and tasting it like a sharp tang at the back of his throat: Fresh motor-oil, sun-warmed metal, thawed sidewalk grit and garbage. Lightning-bolted biceps aching comfortably as he makes transmission adjustments on some Jap piece-of-shit Kawasaki, while lending half an absent ear to the low rumble of profanely amiable, profoundly aimless conversation leaking over from those three bikers in the far corner checking out that newest Harley:  That super-
     (over-)
     -customized one with all the chrome and flash. Vern could take or leave the thing, himself--he far prefers the solid, no-bull power of far older models. But seeing how pose-happy dipshits like these are the ones payin' his bills these days...
     (his CLIENTELE)
     Yeah.  *There*'s a word.
     ...he's willing to make an exception.
     After the fire at his Old Man's place, followed by Beecher's little midnight visit, Vern spent the next few weeks bracing himself for imminent re-arrest, a return trip to Oz-- not that that's happened. Instead, the same insurance adjustors he'd been valiantly trying to pretend didn't exist tracked him down in mid-flyer distribution, and told him the fire's origins had finally been traced back to a combination of "natural" factors:  Grease layered on grease, twenty years deep; his Old Man's broken bottles; a cigarette or two--
     (or twenty)
     --consumed so completely in the blaze they left no forensically-detectable trace of their presence behind; hardly surprising, since Vern'd actually set the Goddamn thing himself.
     (But it wasn't like he was gonna tell *them* that.)
     So the Old Man's insurance--of which he'd had a truly surprising fuck of a LOT, it turned out, for a near-penniless tightwad--reverted to Vern, dumping him right into a figurative pile of disposable income. Thus, the garage, and the shop it was attached to:  VERN'S BIKE REPAIR--new, used, whatever. Trading on his biker connections to jump-start a customer base, he'd actually been running in the black by the time Spring finally broke--pretty good, especially in this mongrel-infested town where most new (*white*-run) businesses go under before they make their first month's rent.  Even dear old P.O. Hamid didn't seem to mind Vern's sudden surge of entrepreneurial initiative, much as it routinely takes him dangerously close to his old community: Doing straight business with possibly crooked people just managing to skirt the ragged edge of ignorable lapse rather than violation-worthy offense, apparently--'specially since Vern's success probably ends up counting as a career feather in Hamid's figurative turban.
     No hanging with other ex-cons, no "criminal fraternization": The primary rule of parole, every previous time Vern's been forced to play buddy-buddy with the concept. But as a *business*man, Vern's biker contacts become a customer base, not a liability. So why NOT let it slide, considering you can't actually do diddly to stop it?
     Vern allows himself a brief, grim smile. Thinking--
     Well, RoSHAN, 's been a slice. Nice to know this prejudice thing runs both ways...
     (...not that I ever really suspected it *didn't*.)
     So: Kiss and say goodbye, in between obligatory monthly office check-ins; you got your quotas to meet, I got mine. And from now on, we respect each other's space about it, like REAL people. Like *citizens*.
     (You arrogant, morally certain little raghead prick.)
     Not that running his own shop had exactly been a walk in the fuckin' park, thus far, equipment and supply prices being what they were; one of the nastier surprises of the free world, after eight years in Oz. So eventually, in order to conserve a little of his own venture capital--
     (Talkin' like a boss already, huh, Vernon?)
     --he'd ended up having to call in the services of someone whose big-lipped face he'd hoped...fervently...to *never see again*.
     "Hey, Moby--missed you down at the ol' homestead," Charlie Cutter had lied, brightly, goggling 'round the garage as Vern glowered down on him--shamelessly aware his old pal "Adolf" obviously didn't yet have the savings to pass up his "special" suppliers' rates. "Maaaaaan! Bet you feel like you done fell right on yo' feet in a kennel built fo' one, dog."
     "Don't call me a--"
     "Figure'a speech, Daddy Doggy. Jus' a li'l pet name 'tween friends, no *in*sult inTENded. YOU know..."
     A pause; then, more pointed than Vern would've given the annoying little ape credit for knowing how to be--
     "...like--nigga."
     And that's how it's gone, ever since:  Cutter showing up with truckloads of miscellaneous (but extremely affordable) bike-related shit off the backs of countless other trucks, Vern looking askance and then--looking the other way. Doesn't want to know where it came from, and the con-artist coon ain't exactly been volunteering. Which still doesn't mean he keeps his big mouth *shut*, as such...
     "Yo, Adolf.  Got your monthly here.  Take it out back?"
     "You know anywhere the fuck *else* I'd want it?"
     A grin. "Man, c'mon; that shit is just TOO easy."
     Yeah, yeah, yeah.
     Ins and outs, backs and forths, give and fuckin' take. A new power-base to forge and maintain, a new rep to carve, a brand new face for an (almost) brand new game; everything negotiable, and nothing at all for free. Just like Oz, really--
     (except...not.)
     Vern pauses between thoughts, frowning slightly; leans back against the floor again, and feels his lats pop. Takes a minute to remind himself just how lucky he's been, all told: Making money, losing weight, working hard, sleeping well. Going home to a full range of channels and a six-pack like any other normal American working guy, plus the occasional date with Huguette, that affable slut of a French-Canadian waitress down at the Slapshot Bar and Grill--same one with the red-black dye-job and the sweetly-quirked mouthful of crooked teeth, who'll scribble her number at the bottom of the check for any guy who looks like half-decent Green Card husband material...
     Bed made, lying in it and feeling just fine, thank you VERY much. No more late-night calls from Rachel, no more unscheduled drop-ins from Hamid. No dreams, most nights--not that he can remember, anyway--
     (*most* nights)
     Feeling his ears flush bright red, meanwhile, before he can clamp down on the memory QUITE fast enough to keep himself from having it. Waking next to Huguette, only to have her ask, sleepily--
     "So, dis To-bey, c'est ton mari, eh? De 'ex'."
     "...Rachel?"
     "TObey, Vehrnon. Dat one you talk about, in your sleep."
     (I was NOT talking in my...)
     Adding, pointedly, at his baffled sidelong stare: "La *biche*."
     ...aw, crap.
     Over and over, with her or without, in all his most unguarded moments: The second just before his alarm clock rings every morning, for example, or the minute after unconsciousness washes over him at night, pulling him down and under like some blood-warm tide. That's when he can still feel ex-lawyer, ex-prag, ex-homeless freak Tobias Beecher's wounded ghost curl up close beside him, snuggling into his arms like a sleepy child; feel Beecher's rough pink tongue lap at him, questingly; feel the delicate touch of Beecher's ruffled hair beneath his chin, brushing at the pulse of his throat...
     Murmuring: Oh, sir. Vernon.
     (...Daddy.)
     Huhrrrr.
     About once every day since the morning after his last, uh--ENCOUNTER with the ungrateful little turd, when he woke with a throbbing skull, a clench-frozen jaw, glass-burn just about everywhere the floor could touch and a lap-full of dried-on sperm--Vern's amused himself by running his own version of Beecher's fantasy appeal to the cops: *Yeah, that's right, Officer, I *do* want to lodge a complaint: Guy broke into my house--*
     (--while I was too fall-down drunk to stop him--)
     *--tied me up, held a broken fuckin' BOTTLE to my face--and then, uh...well...*
     (...he jerked me off.)
     And who was this, exactly? Oh, nobody special. Just some guy I know--
     (from jail)
     Well, yeah, we were--*room*mates, him 'n' me, but we're not--*I*'m not--HE's not, my...*anything*...
     (Not--anymore.)
     Jesus. Might as well call *himself* the nuthouse wagon ahead a'time, and save the State the fuckin' quarter.
     Thankful for what coverage the 'cycle's shadow can provide, Vern feels his frown deepen further, twisting into an outright grimace. Hearing Beecher's voice, now--NOT the Old Man's, or Rachel's, for fuckin' once--chiming in from the back of his head and reminding him, mockingly:
     *Could've seduced me...hell, I might have thought I LOVED you...*
     ...that's just how fucked up I was.
     Vern gives a grim non-smile at the echo, lips quirking in rictus, bad-smell-sharp: Yeah, riiiight. *Love* Beecher, for fuck's sake. BE loved...by him...
     (Oh, be serious.)
     The old refrain, a litany learned by rote, utterly automatic: Beecher can't love *himself*, let alone anyone else. He hates his own fuckin' guts, so much so that he'll mainline poison just to get out of his own head; ran over a little girl, then tricked Vern into punishing him for it, 'cause he was too much of a fuckin' arrogant coward to do it himself. He's a spoiled pussy bitch, a black hole maw, sucking everything around him inside, dragging it down to his own dead level. Like every Goddamn Liberal, he doesn't know what he wants, just doesn't want what he's got.
     (*Ever*.)
     And, shit: Is that what *I* want? Is THAT what I *want*? How fucked up would I have to be, exactly, for *Tobias fuckin' Beecher* to be what I WANT?
     Because--
     --he *is* what I want.
     (Most definitely.)
     So bad, sometimes, it's like Vern's fingers knit and his toes curl, his hair--what little there is of it--raising up like quills. So bad it's like it chokes him; the simple thought of Beecher, part by part--Beecher the last time Vern saw him, with his slick new 'do, his clean new citizen's clothes. His glasses. His *suit*.
     Beecher, free from the Old Man's radiator and safely back in his old, familiar world of privilege, brief jaunt on the streets no doubt all but forgotten: The stink, the dreads, the daily round of sucking off passersby for whatever bottle came cheapest. The way he'd still be, Vern hadn't found him, grabbed him, held him down 'till his habit was all sweated  out--not that he really seems to *remember* that particular fact, ungrateful little--
     (cunt)
     --that he always was.
     Always will be, wherever he is now. Whatever--WHOever--he's...
     (doing)
     Still: This *thing* remains, deep inside Vern like a cut full of dirt, packed too full to heal. Want, like an open, twisting hole. Want, need, whatever...
     First rule of business, in Oz or out: Can't NEED--anything. Can't even want anything too hard, you wanna  stay--
     (safe)
     But: Welcome distraction finally breaks the chain of "logic", thank Christ, taking the form of a shadow by the open door and an uncertain, yet oddly familiar--*female*--voice:
     "Uh...Vern?"
     He flips the wrench aside, rearing up. Rumbling--
     "'S what it says on the door, swee--"
     --oh, what the HELL.
     (Rachel.)
     Rachel, hovering hesitant in the doorway: Glasses on but squinting nevertheless, brows knit; back straight, arms crossed, worried face backlit by her hair's upswept halo. The very sight of her taking Vern's breath away with one contradictory mental gut-punch, way-too-welcome pleasure/pain run through every part of him at once: *My BABY* on the one hand, *that fuckin' race-traitor SLUT* on the other--
      --but there's no time to think about that, any of it; not how she found him, what she's doing here, just what the *Christ* she thinks it's gonna accomplish for them to be suddenly back face-to-face without a shred of decent warning, after lo these many months of rancorous avoidance. Because behind her, something--someONE--else lurks, smirking, whose mere presence is enough to send Vern's train of throught rocketing right back off the tracks in the exact opposite direction. A dapper figure in neat, clean, upscale clothes, grey-gold hair set off with a pale goatee, eyes similarly lens-shaded: Eyes Vern dare not meet in dreams, let alone expect to lock with over an open can a' motor oil and the bikers' oblivious background chatter...
     ("la *biche*")
     Lawyer, prag, "project" past; bad dream, worse memory, constant phantom present. Fate's own Venus Flytrap. Synaptic feedback loop from Hell. Never-ending, ever-repeating, human friggin' carwreck made flesh--
     (Jesus shit, God Almighty, FUCK)
     Or, to put it another--but equally fitting--way:
     *Beecher.*

(To be continued)

Gemma